At The AV Club: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Episodes 2.9, 2.10, and 2.11

In which I review three great episodes before our TV Club Classic Avatar coverage goes on hiatus for a few months.

At The AV Club: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Episodes 2.7 and 2.8 plus Masterpiece Mystery: Inspector Lewis

In which I review "Zuko Alone," which is my favorite Avatar episode, and "The Chase," which is pretty well close.

In which I review the latest episode of Inspector Lewis.

At The AV Club: Avatar: The Last Airbender, episodes 2.5 and 2.6

In which I review the mediocre "Avatar Day" and the excellent "Blind Bandit."

At The AV Club: Avatar: The Last Airbender, episodes 2.3 and 2.4

In which I cover Return to Omashu and The Swamp.  In the comments, I mention my recent health problems.

At The AV Club: Avatar: The Last Airbender, episodes 2.1 and 2.2 plus Gloria: In Her Own Words

In which I discuss the first two episodes of season two of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which includes the hilarious "The Cave Of Two Lovers."

plus:

In which I discuss the HBO documentary on Gloria Steinem called Gloria: In Her Own Words.

At The AV Club: Avatar: The Last Airbender, episodes 1.19 & 1.20

In which we reach the two-part finale of season one.

At The AV Club: Avatar: The Last Airbender, episodes 1.15 & 1.16 plus 1.17 and 1.18

In which I discuss "The Northern Air Temple" and "The Waterbending Master"

I missed episodes 15 and 16, so here is the previous installment:

In which I discuss "Bato of the Water Tribe" and "The Deserter"

At The AV Club: Avatar: The Last Airbender, episodes 1.13 and 1.14

In which I discuss "The Blue Spirit" and "The Fortuneteller."

At The AV Club: Avatar: The Last Airbender, episodes 1.11 and 1.12 plus Citizen U.S.A.

In which I discuss "The Great Divide" and "The Storm."

In which I discuss Alexandra Pelosi's frustrating documentary.

At The AV Club: Avatar: The Last Airbender, episodes 1.7 - 1.10

I forgot to post last week's episodes: The Spirit World/Avatar Roku.

This week, I cover The Waterbending Scroll and Jet.

At The AV Club: Avatar: The Last Airbender, episodes 1.5 and 1.6

In which I discuss "The King Of Omashu" and "Imprisoned." (Link fixed)

At The AV Club: Avatar: The Last Airbender, episodes 1.3 and 1.4

In which I recap, review, reassess, and wreak havoc.

At The AV Club: Celebrity Apprentice finale!

In which I ruminate about The Donald and other important issues.

At The AV Club: American Experience - "Soundtrack To A Revolution"

In which I review an excellent documentary about the Civil Rights Movement that is marred only a tiny bit by a gimmicky conceit.

At the AV Club: Treme 2.3: "On Your Way Down"

In which I found myself disappointed by an off episode from a generally great show.

At The AV Club: Precious Life

In which I write about an Israeli documentary appearing on HBO that has some startlingly great moments.

At The AV Club: Chuck Vs. The A-Team

Today at the AV Club I fill in for Steve Heisler on Chuck.

At the AV Club today: Celebrity Apprentice and The Amazing Race

In which I fill in for my estimable friend Scott Von Doviak on The Amazing Race.

And then I get down with the crazy on Celebrity Apprentice.

Set Your DVR: TCM Goes Kurosawa-Crazy!

Akira Kurosawa would be 100 years old this month if he were alive, and in honor of the man, TCM is showing Kurosawa flicks every Tuesday.  Many of these aren't available on DVD, and even those that are available are among the best films of the 20th century.

Tonight, there's Ikiru (*****), Throne of Blood (****), The Hidden Fortress (****), Hakuchi (unavailable on DVD, I think), and The Lower Depths (which I've never seen).

On the 16th is The Bad Sleep Well (**1/2), High And Low (*****), Red Beard (****), and I Live In Fear (***1/2).

On the 23rd (which is actually Kurosawa's birthday): Sanshiro Sugata (**1/2), The Most Beautiful (unavailable on DVD, haven't seen), The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (unavailable on DVD, haven't seen), Sanshiro Sugata II (**1/2), Regrets For Our Youth (haven't seen), One Wonderful Sunday (haven't seen), Drunken Angel (***), Stray Dog (****), Rashomon (****), Seven Samurai (*****), Yojimbo (*****), Sanjuro (***1/2), and Dodes 'Ka-Den (haven't seen).

On the 30th, there's Dersu Uzala (haven't seen), Kagemusha (**1/2), and Ran (****1/2).

I seriously encourage anyone who has never watched a Kurosawa film to catch at least one of these. The guy was one of the best filmmakers of the 20th century, if not The Best. Considering that he was a Japanese man making films in the 50s and 60s, it's pretty amazing how well his movies translate to modern Western audiences, but that's mostly because he stole shamelessly from American and European directors and, in turn, some of the most influential filmmakers of today stole shamelessly from him. His films are full of beautiful cinematography and well-observed moments of pure human behavior for the art set, while still fun and witty and action-packed for more mainstream tastes.

Venture Brothers With 100% Less Hatred

Fantastic episode of the Venture Brothers this week! I've been waiting all season to say that. But the previous episodes have been filled with the oxygen-suckage of Sgt. Hatred, a one-note character who I could not be happier to see gone. Note to Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer: there's nothing funny about pedophilia, sorry. Your constant attempt to humanize it with Hatred plays somewhere between the dull provocateurishness of South Park and the dull provocateurishness of Todd Solondz, and dull provocateurishness is beneath you.

Unfortunately, Adult Swim was so far off with its schedule this week that many people didn't get to see it because their DVR can only record for so long. I only caught this because I sat down to watch the episode immediately after it had ended and realized that it didn't even start until 10+ minutes into my recording, leaving the last 10 minutes cut off. I reset my DVR to catch the late-night showing, but many of my friends didn't discover the problem until the next day.

Fortunately, you can watch it here.